Abstract
This study sought to explore factors that determine the public’s acceptance of and adoption behavior toward e-government health applications launched in Saudi Arabia (SA) by the Ministry of Health (MOH) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research relied on several theories: the technology acceptance model (TAM), information system success model (ISSM), mobile services acceptance model (MSAM), and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). The constructs of perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived usefulness (PU), attitude (ATT), trust (TR), information quality (IQ), facilitating condition (FC), and social influence (SI) were utilized to investigate the user’s intention toward using e-government health applications. The proposed model and its seven hypotheses were tested by conducting a survey across social media among citizens and residents in SA. A total of 785 valid responses were analyzed by SmartPLS and a structural equation modeling technique. After analysis, the results showed that PEOU, PU, ATT, TR, IQ, FC, and SI have positive effects on behavioral intentions. As for contributions, this paper is the first research paper to investigate the adoption of e-government health applications launched by MOH in SA during the COVID-19 pandemic and to provide a theoretical framework for pursuing future research work in a similar scope.
Highlights
Over the course of many years, the health sector in Saudi Arabia (SA) has improved the quality of the medical services it provides
Based on Hoque et al (2017), partial least-squares (PLS) “is a statistical analysis technique based on the structural equation model (SEM).”
The proposed theoretical model consists of eight constructs: perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived usefulness (PU), ATT, information quality (IQ), TR, facilitating condition (FC), information system (IS), and behavioral intention (BI)
Summary
Over the course of many years, the health sector in Saudi Arabia (SA) has improved the quality of the medical services it provides. With the sudden spread of COVID-19, the MOH released several more mobile health applications to serve the public in SA: Mawid, Tetamman, Tawakkalna, and Tabaud. With these applications, citizens and residents can request movement permits during curfew, book COVID-19 test appointments, and receive medical consultations (MOH, 2020c). Citizens and residents can request movement permits during curfew, book COVID-19 test appointments, and receive medical consultations (MOH, 2020c) Adopting such technology provides benefits to health-care providers, such as safer hospital operations and better accessibility to patient’s data. From a patient’s perspective, there are advantages, such as receiving better treatment quality and saving time (Amin et al, 2020), and differing opinions toward the use of such technologies in a health-care context
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